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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30051423">Amnesia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills'>kittymills</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Robotech, Robotech The Macross Saga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst, Memory Loss, Rick x Lisa, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:54:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,115</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30051423</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>During Khyron’s final devastating attack, Rick saw the SDF-1 get hit and knew he had lost Lisa forever.<br/>She survived, but he lost her anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lisa Hayes/Rick Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Amnesia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Huh, so this is my 50th fic - yay me :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p>
<h2>i.</h2><p> </p><p>Rick flies in circles around the scorched and sinking carcasses of the SDF’s with his heart in his throat and Lisa’s name on his lips.</p><p>The realisation that he may have just lost her when he had only just realized what she meant to him is agonizing in the pain it brings.</p><p>So he promises himself if she’s alive, if he finds her… he'll never let anything get between them ever again.</p><p>But he never accounted for this.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She opens her eyes to the sound of screaming, blood in her hair, on her hands and the smell of smoke layering over her like a blanket. Her ears ring with a high pitched whine and her head throbs. Faces that feel familiar but she doesn’t know the names of drift indistinctly into her field of vision. She touches her head and her hand comes away wet and sticky with gore.</p><p>A suited up figure in pale yellow suit looms into her space but it’s hard to focus. They blur in and out, their mouth moving behind the translucent shield but she can’t make out their words. She has no idea where she is, or what’s happened.</p><p>The face behind the suit leans in again and her ears suddenly snatch words out of the screams.</p><p>“- Captain Hayes! Captain, can you hear me?”</p><p>She blinks, and tries to move herself, but her body feels sluggish. She looks down at the water pooling at her feet. It runs red with blood.</p><p>The hand of fear grips her throat, curling around her breath and squeezing it out of her body. She scrabbles for purchase, an attempt to pull herself upright, but the floor is slick and uneven. A woman in a pale blue uniform and blonde hair wails in the corner, a dark haired man is barking orders in a language she can’t understand, one leg trapped under a beam of heavy metal as water rises. Another woman, with beautiful dark skin huddles over another woman in blue, clutching her arm to her chest as her face grimaces in pain.</p><p>And those strange, bundled up figures move between them all.</p><p>The one nearest to her calls her again, sliding into her line of sight and the looming shape of the head cone causes the terror to spike. She can’t speak, she can’t breathe – she doesn’t know why they keep calling her captain and she thrashes against the sudden grip on her arm. There’s more screaming and a small part of her wonders if those sounds are ripped from her throat or someone else’s.</p><p>She tries to fight them, those eerie looming figures, as an unexplainable fear swallows her up. The grip on her tightens as two thick padded arms come around her chest and hold her down. There’s a pinprick of pain then darkness crowds the edges of her vision.</p><p>Her eyes close.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the moments following Khyron’s kamikaze run against the battle fortress with his own ship, Rick had been desperately holding onto hope that the command centre of the SDF’s survived. The alternative was too devastating to think about, his fragile heart too weak to comprehend. But then the miraculous word comes that the bridge crew survived. It takes everything in him not to drop his patrol and run to her – to Lisa - but he remembers his duty, and he knows that she would want him to see out his mission. He cradles the knowledges she’s alive inside him and the thought of her fills him with a conviction he hasn’t felt in years.</p><p>He assists with the mop up, and as he deplanes wearily from Skull One with snowflakes laying like stars against his hair, he thinks about all the things he's finally going to say to her.</p><p>But then he finds her, and there's nothing he can say at all.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p>
<h2>ii.</h2><p> </p><p>Her head still aches under the bandages but it’s not the soft beeps and hums of the equipment in her hospital room that wakes her, but the commotion outside in the hall.</p><p>She hears a voice call out “Rick! Rick, wait!” and then a young man is pushing the door open to her room and barging his way inside. Lisa gasps and yanks on the sheet, pulling it primly up to her throat.</p><p>He stops dead in his tracks at the motion. “Lisa?”</p><p>The first thing she notices is that he’s young, but his eyes have a weariness about them that betrays what his unruly mop of dark hair tries to hide. He has blue eyes, so impossibly, strikingly blue that shine and well with dampness when he finds her.</p><p>Lisa. He called her Lisa. It’s her name, they tell her, but it’s as foreign to her has the man in front of her. She stares at him helplessly but doesn’t speak.</p><p>“Lisa, I… Oh, god. I thought… I thought I lost you.”</p><p>He takes a faltering step towards her, and her eyes search him for some kind of sign that she knows him. He’s handsome, she spares barely a heartbeat to consider. His voice has a pleasing timbre too, something that feels vaguely familiar but it cracks with exhaustion. He’s wearing a pilot’s uniform, a flight suit, as though he’d landed and jumped right out of his plane to charge his way into her hospital room.</p><p>She knows somewhere in her gut that she should know him but she doesn't.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They try to warn him before he sees her but Rick doesn't listen. All he knows is that Lisa is on the other side of that door, that she <em>survived</em>, that despite how blind he had been for so long, she’s alive. In the midst of the burning city and the wreckage of the space fortress, they still have each other. He still has her. His Lisa, his love, the woman who had held his heart long before he even realised he had given it away.</p><p>His thoughts are full of hope for their future. Full of the words he’s going to finally give voice to, words that have been brewing deeply for so very long.</p><p>
  <em>I swear to you, nothing is going to keep us apart again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll take care of you, Lisa. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you.</em>
</p><p>But the frail and wan woman in the hospital bed looks at him like he's a stranger.</p><p>"I'm sorry,” she says hesitantly after a long moment. “I don't know your name."</p><p>It's a cruel twist of fate, Rick will think later. Some sort of cosmic joke that he finally sorts through his feelings, finally realises that it’s <em>her</em> he loves only to lose her. The second chance he had clung to, the words beating inside his chest - He was going to swear his soul to her, promise to do everything in his power to keep her safe.</p><p>But he’s too late. He loses her anyway.</p><p>There’s a commotion behind him as a Claudia limps into the room on his heels. She can’t move as fast with the crutches.  Her dark skin is marred with bandages from the burns sustained in the battle.</p><p>“Rick!” she calls out but then she stops in her tracks.</p><p>Her eyes volley silently between him and the figure laid out on the bed.</p><p>Rick can’t find his voice but there doesn’t seem to be much of a need to. Lisa stares at him curiously, a little bit of wariness crowding the edges. The bandage around the side of her head emphasizes what Claudia had to try to warn him of.</p><p>Lisa had been hurt during the battle. Her head injury impacted her memories. She doesn’t know who she is, and she doesn’t know who <em>he</em> is.</p><p>She doesn’t know he loves her.</p><p>His eyes drink her in anyway – greedily - from the dark honey curl of her long hair, to the deep green of her eyes. Her narrow wrists rest against the crisp white bedsheet and her brows furrow with confusion. It wasn’t so long ago that he had slipped his hands around her waist and held her, looked into her eyes and finally said out loud what his heart had been trying to tell him for months.</p><p>
  <em>Because I love you, Lisa.</em>
</p><p>But that Lisa is gone.</p><p>He manages to shake himself off, and instead forces a weak smile to his face. She looks wary now, he’s been staring at her for too long and she’s uncomfortable. The way that hurts leaves him breathless. Inside he wants to scream, he wants to yell and he wants to hit something. But he shoves it all down, desperate to smooth that guarded expression away from her face.</p><p>“Uh, I’m Rick,” he says lamely. “Captain Rick Hunter. Ex loud mouthed civilian pilot, and Skull Leader.” He takes a step forward and waits for the flash of recognition to appear in her eyes.</p><p>Nothing happens.</p><p>The silence is painful. “Oh,” she says quietly. She sounds as disappointed as he is that no burst of recollection crosses her mind. “And we… we know each other?”</p><p>Rick tries to hold back the whip of pain that causes. He thinks he’s managed to keep it off his face for the most part. He clears his throat. “You could say that,” he says, thinking about their time together. Memories flash behind his eyes, their fighting over the comm, kissing her on the command ship, walking out of the movie and into her, swooping in to her rescue on Alaska Base, all the nights they had spent working together side by side, their thinly veiled arguments about Minmei on the bridge of the SDF2, the growing way he couldn’t keep her out of his thoughts no matter how hard he tried to tell himself it was Minmei he cared for.</p><p>Silence reigns again. Lisa waits for him to elaborate then chooses to fill the space when he takes too long to answer.</p><p>Her gaze flickers over his uniform. “I take it we worked together?”</p><p>Rick nods. “Yes. We… ah. We’re friends.”</p><p>She looks genuinely surprised by that revelation. “We are?”</p><p><em>We’re more than friends</em>, Rick wants to yell but he’s not sure about the truth of his words. Not anymore. Maybe they were never true.</p><p>The agony that grips his heart proves to be too much and he stammers out an excuse and flees.</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p>
<h2>iii.</h2><p> </p><p> </p><p>The first few days in the hospital pass with a haziness she can’t fight. There are visitors, people with faces that should be familiar but leave her blank and empty. It’s frustrating and upsetting and she’s quite convinced she’s never felt so lonely. For the most part, her body has healed but her head injury leaves her woozy and the surgery is making it hard to recover.</p><p>She stares at her reflection in the glass of the hospital’s small bathroom mirror and wonders why she can’t remember a single thing. The face staring back at her is unfamiliar and Lisa strokes a hand over the area of her skull the medical team shaved in order to operate to save her life. She stares at the scaring, the uneven light brown long locks and calls the nurse.</p><p>“What can I get for you, Capt- Oh! What are you doing out of bed?”</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep,” Lisa shrugs. The nurse goes to take her arm and lead her back to bed but Lisa stubbornly refuses to go. Instead, she brusquely demands a set of scissors.</p><p>The nurse stares at her in shock. “Are you sure? Your hair is so long, and that’s so drastic. There’s no need! Surely we could-”</p><p>“No,” Lisa all but snaps and she doubles down on her request despite the woman’s troubled gaze.</p><p>When the nurse returns, Lisa disappears into the bathroom once again.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Rick can’t keep the shock off his face when he sees her again. He almost doesn’t recognize her. She looks so different with her hair cropped short into a sleek bob that brushes against her shoulders. She’s beautiful, she will always be beautiful but something about her new look just goes to make her feel even more removed from him, that the Lisa who had stood on his doorstep and confessed with tears in her eyes that she loved him was nothing more than a figment of his imagination.</p><p>He keeps his wits about himself long enough to compliment her but she purses her lips and changes the subject. She’s stronger today, he can see it by the determined light in her eye. She peppers him with questions, curious about how they had come to know each other and Rick finds himself offering her a censored version of events, perhaps a version that didn’t reflect so glaringly his past misdeeds and immaturity.</p><p>Max, in his bright, optimistic way of his, had advised Rick to look on the bright side, to take this as a second chance with Lisa. To woo her, win her over without the baggage of their past misunderstandings. <em>You made her fall in love with you once</em>, Max had told him. <em>Maybe you can do it again.</em></p><p>Privately, Rick didn’t like his chances, but he wasn’t about to give up.</p><p>So he visits her as often as he can, just dropping in for a few moments at a time to stammer out a short hello, comment inanely on the weather and offer her a paperback he thinks she might like. At first he doesn’t stay long simply because it hurts too much, then it’s because he doesn’t know what to say. He arrives one day and she’s out of bed, dressed and sitting by the window with a stack of RDF badged paperwork in her hands.</p><p>He’s startled to realise they’re the reports of their time as Dolza’s prisoners.</p><p>She looks up when he walks in, gesturing to the pages in her lap. “This can’t be real,” she tells him in disbelief. “No wonder Earth Command didn’t believe us. Apparently I was there and even I don’t believe this.”</p><p>Rick approaches slowly and takes a seat beside her at the window. It’s the most candid she’s been with him, the most she’s ever said to him since she’s been moved out of the hospital ward and into a respite centre. It’s a nice room, he thinks but as he looks outside to the immaculate gardens he’s glad at least she has something pretty to look at instead of crumbling rubble of New Macross City. Although, how anything could grow in this cold weather and acid snow, Rick couldn’t understand.</p><p>“It’s all true,” he tells her ruefully, drawing his attention back. “Every word of it.”</p><p>She studies him carefully for a moment. “What happened during the mission that isn’t in this report?”</p><p>Rick frowns. “What?”</p><p>“What happened that isn’t in this report,” she asks again, a hardness to her tone that brokers no argument. “Tell me please,” she says more quietly, a silent desperation to her voice when he flounders for too long. “Maybe something will jog my memory.”</p><p>That’s all the prompting Rick needs. He takes a breath and begins to speak. He tells her about the radar, the recon mission, the capture, their arguments, the interrogation… their kiss… and their brazen escape.</p><p>He doesn’t tell it like he had in his report, instead he retells the events from his memories. He senses that’s actually what she wants to hear anyway, his version of events with emotions and insights, not the dry retelling of what was on the military account. She listens with wide eyes, eyes that spark when he recalls with a burning face the way they had argued.</p><p>“I would hope you’ve had a change of heart concerning women in command now, Captain.”</p><p>He laughs in spite of himself. “Oh, yeah. You’d better believe it.”</p><p>He gazes at her warmly but she clears her throat uncomfortably and glances away. Rick’s smile fades. For a moment she had sounded so much like his Lisa that he had let himself forget she’s not his.</p><p>She asks more questions and he finds himself relaying every moment he could remember that they spent together over the past few years. Their shared burdens of respective commands, their successes, their losses but he steers clear of mentioning their missed chances. He talks for a long time, longer than he realises and before long, the sun is stretching over the horizon and sinking low.</p><p>He’s been talking for hours when he glances around the darkened room and wonders if he should turn on the light. He’s about to get up when Lisa turns to stare out the window.</p><p>“We were more than friends, weren’t we?”</p><p>Rick wishes he had an answer to this that isn’t self-serving, but there is none. “I had hoped we could be.”</p><p>She looks back at him and their eyes catch and hold for a breathless moment. Rick wonders if maybe something had come back, if she remembers him. If maybe, even without her memories, her heart might still belong to him. He allows himself to fall into the fantasy and he inches forward to lean into her space but she tears her gaze from his and looks away.</p><p>They don’t talk much after that and Rick leaves when the meal cart comes.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The pilot doesn’t visit her again for a while and before she knows it, they’re discharging her from the care centre and sending her back to civilian life. She wasn’t much good to the military in the present. She barely knew her own name let alone had the ability to command a fortress of people on the ground and in the air.</p><p>They tell her she was a decorated officer; she’s seen the medals, the photos of her face and a uniform, staring soberly into a camera as she salutes.</p><p>She doesn’t know that woman.</p><p>Lisa walks down the street, New Macross once again rebuilt although she had heard the rumours of how difficult the reconstruction efforts were this time around. There was only so much the people could stand, and it seemed that even they may have hit their limits after the last attack. Lisa can’t imagine what it must have been like to live in a world that’s constantly being torn apart. Of all the frustrations of not remembering her past, she’s glad she doesn’t remember the trauma of the war or the fight to rebuild following the alien attacks.</p><p>She stops by a bakery, buys some bread and some pretty little pastries to take to Claudia’s house. It was an unusual friendship she had developed with Claudia – they had been friends for years, Claudia had told her and while Lisa might not remember the intricacies of their relationship, she recognizes the easy comfort that being around Claudia brings her.</p><p>And sometimes, Claudia’s tone or her laugh will hit just the right frequency that tickles something in the far recess of Lisa’s mind. But it’s never for long and after too many failed attempts, Lisa stops trying to chase them.</p><p>She’s building a good life here now. And she is content.</p><p>From everything she’s heard about her previous life, she’s not sure she was. She had been given a gift, a fresh start, a chance for happiness without the pain of the past. Why would she want to dredge it all back?</p><p>The one dark spot is Captain Hunter. She had heard from Claudia that he had refused a promotion and wondered at what kind of man he was to turn down a chance to move up the ranks when given the opportunity. He had stopped by almost daily in those first few weeks in the beginning, although with the way he turned his tortured eyes on her, she almost wished he didn’t.</p><p>From the moment he had first barged into her room, something inside her tugged faintly towards him. Perhaps it was the way he looked at her, like she was something he couldn’t live without, or maybe it was the way he would sometimes catch her gaze and hold it a little too much longer than necessary-</p><p>And there was something about the sight of his hands that hadn’t come until much later, a violent shake from inside her that forces her to pay attention even as she cries inwardly she doesn’t want to. There was a lot about him that left echoes behind, traces of a dream she wonders were part of her previous life or merely just a dream.</p><p>But he’s a stranger to her.</p><p>It’s been weeks since he had told her the story of their past. She had questions; there were things she wanted to ask him. But she’s scared to rock the fragile contentment she’s found in this new life away from him. Her fresh start.</p><p>Then one day, she’s walking the promenade along the lake and there he is, walking towards her. For a split second, she wants to hide and watch him pass. She’s always considered him pleasing to look at. He was handsome with his eyes so blue and hair she wishes she could run her hands through. But he represents a danger to her happiness too.</p><p>If there’s anyone that can pull her from the murky oblivion, it’s him.</p><p>She’s frozen in place, too late to move when he looks up and sees her.</p><p>“Lisa!”</p><p>His smile is dazzling and genuine and Lisa experiences a violent pull of longing ripple right through her heart. He had confessed they were friends, maybe broaching something more, and she didn’t doubt it. Not for a second when she could feel the echoes of it in her bones. She had wanted him. She was sure she had loved him with her every breath once.</p><p>“Hello, Captain,” she says, purposely using his rank in an effort to put distance between them.</p><p>It seems to work because a hint of a frown twists his mouth then he straightens and stops with more distance between them than was necessary. “Hello, Lisa. How… How are you?”</p><p>She clutches the paper bags to her chest and tries to ignore the frantic beat of her heart. She can’t help but wonder what it would be like to tug on that thread, to see what it is about him that draws her in so much.</p><p>“I’m well, thank you.”</p><p>He notices the bag in her hands. “Do, uh, do you need help with that?”</p><p>“No,” she smiles. “I’ve got it under control.” There’s another beat of silence. Rick’s gaze on her changes, he looks like he wants to step closer, like he wants to reach out for her. It takes everything she has not to meet him halfway and she berates herself wildly for this longing that isn’t hers. She gives a small toss of her head and forces a smile. “Well, uh, I had better get going or Claudia will be wondering where I am. It was nice seeing you again. Take care.”</p><p>She ducks her face and hurries off, trying to ignore the way her heart aches in her chest as if she’s just lost something precious.</p><p>He’s a relic of a past she doesn’t know.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>As Rick watches her hurry off, the grief hits him like tsunami. It’s been building for weeks and now he can no longer escape it. For the first time he finally admits she’s gone, he’s lost her. Lisa has been reborn into a new life, a new reality, and in this one, there’s no space for him.</p><p>It’s a bitter pill to swallow.</p><p>Without thinking, he finds the nearest watering hole and parks himself at the bar. He orders three shots, downs them one after the other, wishing the burn down his throat would go all the way to his heart.</p><p>A radio plays as the alcohol keeps flowing. One of Minmei’s songs comes on and his fist clenches around the glass in his hand. He’s so sick of hearing it. He knows all the words, hates them all. <em>To be in love </em>– once he had been young enough and arrogant enough to think Minmei had actually been singing about him, about what he had dreamed they’d once had, except now it only made him think of Lisa and the life they’ll never have.</p><p>He misses Lisa her with an ache that encompasses every atom in his soul. He had so many chances and he blew them all. Now she barely knows his name.</p><p>Grief washes over him anew.</p><p>He takes another drink.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It’s Max that they call when he’s finally cut off. <em>Thank god he’s not in uniform</em>, he has a final coherent thought before he’s all but carried out of the bar.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p>
<h2>iv.</h2><p> </p><p> </p><p>The year drags on, and Lisa starts to dream.</p><p>They start in the darkest hours before the dawn - misshapen messes of an old reality she never lived and faces she’s terrified to remember. They’re incoherent and startling.</p><p>The group of women she had survived the attack with, the bridge crew, still visit her. They try to draw her back into their fold but their uniforms and subtle pressure make her uncomfortable. She’s not interested in being reinstated even if she could remember half the things the military drilled into her.</p><p>She’s happy now, she thinks. Except the niggling feeling that she’s missing something <em>important </em>won’t leave her alone. At night she struggles to sleep and she migrates to the window to stare up at the looming shadow of the discarded SDF-1.</p><p>Another life. Another time.</p><p>The Admiral visited her one time. He had looked at her sadly, kindly, told her quietly in his gruff voice with his command cap pulled low over his eyes that he had known her since she was a child. She had been a stalwart at his side during the war, courageous and brave. Lisa had sensed there was more he wanted to say but he hums low and lays a hand against her shoulder. Somehow the weight of it makes her eyes prick and as much as she wishes she could remember his man to be worthy of the regard he has for her, she doesn’t.</p><p>He tells her it doesn’t matter. He tells her she’s free now. Tells her to <em>live.</em></p><p>February starts its slow meld into spring. Lisa finds the bright buds opening a sign of hope. New life in all the devastation. She sees a lot more children now, a baby boom following the final touchdown of the SDF-1 years before and she delights in the sound of childish giggles in the local playgrounds.</p><p>Sometimes she thinks about the dark haired pilot with the blue eyes. Sometimes she dreams about him too.</p><p>Occasionally she catches glimpses of him in the streets but she shies away from venturing too close. He doesn’t come to see her anymore and she tells herself she’s glad for it.</p><p>In March, she’s surprised by the girls showing up on her doorstep long after she’s moved into the civilian residential area. It’s still early morning when they crowd into her little apartment but apparently Lisa has always been an early riser because she’s already dressed and primed for the day ahead. Claudia tells her it’s her military background but doesn’t elaborate. She passes the time with them happily until they start to laugh at a memory Lisa doesn’t have and she looks at them with tears in her eyes.</p><p>“Why do you all care so much?” she asks, saddened she doesn’t remember the friendship she shared with them.</p><p>The smallest one, Sammy, grips her hand. “You don’t remember us, but we remember you.”</p><p>Vanessa wipes her eye. “And we’ve already lost so many.”</p><p>Kim offers her a weak smile. “We don’t want to lose you too, Lisa.”</p><p>And later as they’re leaving, Claudia kisses her cheek. “Happy birthday, honey.”</p><p>In June, the summertime heat spurs her to dig through her wardrobe for a summer dress, but she only finds modest skirts and button up blouses. She wonders at her life before she lost her memory. Was she really as boring as her clothes made her seem? Or just too busy drowning in her duty that she practically lived in her uniform? It makes her sad to think that she may have wasted so much of her life in the bridge of a battleship and for what? A planet that’s barely living, a life barely lived.</p><p>She heads downtown, grateful at least for the comfortable amount of funds in her bank account. Aside from apparently not having much of a life, it appeared she never ventured out much either. She ends up purchasing a pretty emerald green dress that reveals her shoulders and dons a wide sunhat. Her hair was growing quickly, already curling against the tops of her shoulders but she pins it back with a green ribbon at the base of her neck.</p><p>She shops for groceries and goes home to bake some treats, only realising too late that she has no idea what to do with it all once it’s cooling on her counter. A last minute decision has her stacking it all up into a basket and walking towards the base. She expects the officer at the security checkpoint to question her but his eyes grow wide when he sees her.</p><p>“Captain Hayes, ahh… oh.”</p><p>She gives him a small smile. “Not Captain anymore, I’m afraid. Just Lisa. I’d like to have access so that I can deliver these to the command crew.”</p><p>The officer glances at the basket in her hands and rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, you see, Captain-“</p><p>“Lisa.”</p><p>“..ah, Lisa, I’m not really sure we’re allowed to do that, with civilians and all I mean, ah-“</p><p>“It’s alright, Jensen,” a voice she only hears in her dreams says from behind her. She turns and there he is, walking up to them. He avoids her eye and talks to the officer instead. “I’ll escort her to the officer’s mess and the command centre.”</p><p>“Uh, but Captain-“</p><p>“Lisa Hayes is a decorated officer of the war, Corporal. Many of us wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for her. If she wants to see the command centre, she can see the command centre.” Rick seems to spare a thought for the flustered corporal and softens. “I will personally escort her.”</p><p>The Corporal snaps off a grateful salute. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir.”</p><p>Lisa appraises him silently, somewhat disquieted inside to realise that this Captain Hunter seems different to the one that had occasionally flittered into her hazy dreams. He’s older, harder. His blue eyes seem to carry a pain he can’t disguise. In her dreams, he’s younger, more brash and cocky enough she thinks she might want to strangle him.</p><p>“Thank you,” she says quietly as the corporal hurries into the booth to give them access through the checkpoint.</p><p>He gives her a glance she can’t discern. “You’re welcome, Lisa. No matter what, this will always be your home. You’ll always be welcome here.”</p><p>“That’s kind of you to say, Captain. But I understand the need for security. I’m not the person they remember me as, as much as they would like me to be.”</p><p>She glances sideways with a rueful smile, only see a harsh twist to his lips.</p><p>“You’re Lisa Hayes,” he says in a voice that’s rough with emotion. “You’ll always be Lisa Hayes.”</p><p>She’s not sure how to respond to that and for the hundredth time, she wonders if she should go somewhere far away from these people who seem to care so much about her. She feels like a living ghost, continually reminding them of the friend they had lost, but although she’s not who she was, she knows she would miss them.</p><p>“Thank you,” she says quietly as they walk. They’re almost at the command centre when the captain turns to her.</p><p>“And Lisa? Please, call me Rick.”</p>
<hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p>
<h2>v.</h2><p> </p><p>In August, rumours of an uprising in the south make their way to her and the rest of the civilian population. She watches the news reports for any skerrick of information but she grows frustrated with vague news and finds doors closed to her when she tries to gather up more information. She finds herself growing restless, frustrated that she should be doing more but hampered by her distance from the command centre. Her dreams become more insistent, and she wakes up with radar screen images behind her eyes and stars around the edges of her thoughts.</p><p>Listless, she approaches Claudia, who wastes no time in gratefully drawing her close then marching her directly to Admiral Gloval’s office.</p><p>He tips his hat and tries to hide a smile when Lisa demands to be privy to things that are no longer a part of her. “Somehow I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away,” he says.</p><p>Lisa gives him a rueful smile. “It seems everyone keeps saying that.”</p><p>She finds new purpose in working alongside the Admiral, but it proves to be complicated when she puts on her uniform and walks the halls for the first time. She can hear the whispers, the surprise in their voices, only to be followed quickly by disappointment that no, her memories haven’t returned, but apparently her military blood ran too deep for her to ignore.</p><p>And she’s always tense, always keeping one eye open on the door in case <em>he </em>walks through.</p><p>He doesn’t though, and after a few weeks, she starts to relax into her new role. It’s simple; making coffee, transcribing low level security reports. She’s kept far away from the command centre and even further from the airfields. And before long, the holiday season creeps upon them.</p><p>It’s Christmas time when she finds herself face to face with Captain Hunter again, under the mistletoe at Max and Miriya’s party. Miriya embraces all the human traditions, especially if it involves touching lips. She points it out gleefully and Lisa flushes as she looks up.</p><p>Sure enough, a sprig of mistletoe is over their heads. Rick’s gaze flickers up and his shoulders sag slightly. He looks apologetic.</p><p>“Hey,” he says with a touch of humour that rings sad. “At least it’s not <em>you</em> ordering me to kiss you this time.”</p><p>Lisa spares a thought for the woman she once was. Lonely enough, stiff enough that a man had to be <em>ordered</em> to kiss her. Miserable.</p><p>“You’d better make it an order so Rick feels more at home,” someone cackles nearby and Lisa spares them an amused smile that hurts in a place she can’t explain.</p><p>There’s a smattering of laughter but Rick catches her eye.  He doesn’t laugh along, watching her warily.</p><p>“We don’t have to,” he says, shoulders stiff with tension.</p><p>“It’s alright,” she assures him, surprised at herself at how easily the words come and how much she means them. Rick leans in to peck her lightly on the cheek but no one at the party is satisfied with that.</p><p>“Come on, Captain! You can do better than that.”</p><p>“Yeah, kiss her like the war depends on it!”</p><p>Rick’s cheeks actually stain pink. “Yeah, yeah, alright,” he laughs, waving the comments away.</p><p>Lisa laughs too, her cheeks colouring and warm under the light brush of his lips and the glass of wine in her hand.</p><p>He gives her an apologetic smile. “Alright, pucker up,” he chuckles and for an instant, an echo of a moment long ago slides through her but she doesn’t have time to process it because Rick’s finger is warm and gentle under her chin. He guides her face towards his and she has a dizzying split second to take in the vibrant blue of his eyes before her own drift closed and then his lips are pressed against hers.</p><p>It explodes behind her eyes - the memory of another kiss, another moment. For a beat she’s caught between two realities, two Ricks, two versions of herself. There’s an echo and a whisper, Rick’s voice ringing in her mind amongst the scream of bombs - <em>Because I love you, Lisa.</em></p><p>She draws back and gasps, one hand flying to her throat. Rick blinks, his eyes opening slowly as he leans back.</p><p>She steps back with a small stumble as imagines blur in her mind. Past and present overlap and shudder in her vision. They echo and pulse and rush in, filling the empty places in her mind she had long become accustomed to. She throws her hands to her head as the images flicker faster and voices pulse behind her ears.  “Oh, oh god-”</p><p>“Lisa?” Rick asks worriedly and the faintest thread of <em>hope</em> in his voice makes her want to scream. She doesn’t want to remember, she tells herself. She doesn’t want to give up this life… <em>she’s safe here!</em></p><p>“I remember,” she gasps. “I remember-“</p><p>Claudia scoops her up first, holding her tight as the sobs come so hard and fast she’s not sure if she remembers how to breathe. Then it’s Max and Miriya and all the others are crowding around. She clings to each one of them as her memories come flooding back, laughing and crying as the locked door inside her is flung open. All her experiences, her knowledge, her heartaches and her love - it all comes flooding back.</p><p>It’s not until a long time after that she realises Rick didn’t bother to hang around.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Later she says goodnight to Claudia on her doorstep and steals herself for a long walk in the cold. She could take the transit system, but she wants to reacquaint herself with her memories and the walk will help her.</p><p>“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Claudia asks. There’s a touch of concern in her voice. “It’s cold out there tonight.”</p><p>“I’m sure,” Lisa assures her. “There’s…. something I have to do. Someone I see to see.”</p><p>Realization dawns in Claudia’s eyes. Her smile is kind and knowing. “Would it happen to do with a certain flyboy we both know and love?”</p><p>Lisa smiles softly. She can feel it inside her chest, in the depths of her heart, all the love she carried for him. It has always been there, but she couldn’t put a name to it before now. “I don’t know if he’ll want to see me.”</p><p>“He will,” Claudia tells her. “I know he will.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The knock on the door long after midnight catches him by surprise. He pulls it open just as she smiles at him, eyes shimmering in the moonlight.</p><p>The breath seizes in his lungs and a wild part of his mind tries to convince him that he’s dreaming. She couldn’t really be here, could she? Standing on his doorstep, her hair caught in the breeze, a pale winter coat tucked high against her neck to ward off the chill.</p><p>
  <em>Lisa.</em>
</p><p>She gazes at him steadily from the path just outside his door. He wonders what it means that she’s standing in almost exactly the same spot she had been the last time she remembered him. Was she here to say goodbye again?</p><p>His heart screams out her name but his voice is a stammer. “Lisa, you’re… what…” he shakes his head and pushes down the dread that’s been his companion for the past few hours. “How are you feeling?” he asks instead.</p><p>She ignores his stuttered question and slams him with one of her own. “When you found me in the rubble… Did you mean it?”</p><p>Rick stares at her. His hand on the door handle is white knuckled. So it was true. Her memories really had returned. He hadn’t told a soul about that confession, and Minmei had been too far away to hear.</p><p>“Every word,” he whispers brokenly.</p><p>Hurt flits across her gaze. He knows where her thoughts have gone. He knows she’s wrong.</p><p>“Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you tell me?”</p><p>His eyes blur and grow damp and the lump in his throat threatens to steal his voice completely. “You got a fresh start… You were happy, Lisa. And I had already hurt you-“</p><p>He chokes on his words, but he forces them out anyway. “I’ll always love you, Lisa. But you deserve to be happy… And I won’t be the one to stand in the way of that.”</p><p>She studies him closely for a long, agonising moment. An eternity passes before she drifts closer to him, out of the lamplight of the street and into the glow of his doorway. She reaches out for him and lays her hand against his cheek. His face is damp under her palm.</p><p>“You could make me happy, Rick,” she tells him softly. Her own eyes glitter with unshed tears. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”</p><p>He’s too stunned to move but then the spell is broken. He whispers her name hoarsely and pulls her into his arms. She clings to him tightly and he steps back, taking her with him as he kicks the door shut behind her.</p><p>He buries his face in her hair and his shoulders shudder as he cries softly. “Lisa, oh god, Lisa. You came back to me, you came back-”</p><p>She draws back and cups his face. Both of their cheeks are wet with tears but she kisses him and curls around him tightly. “Rick. My Rick...”</p><p>Another sob escapes him. “You said… you said you didn’t want to remember-“</p><p>“I was wrong,” she whispers fiercely. She cups his face and holds him in place, locking their eyes together. “I never want to lose this, Rick.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He carries her bridal style into his bedroom.</p><p>She laughs breathlessly against his mouth, already plucking greedy fingers at his clothes. This Lisa doesn’t hesitate to take what she wants from him and Rick succumbs willingly under her heated demands. He lays her back on the sheets and hovers over her in the dark.</p><p>“Are you sure?” he whispers.</p><p>Her arms curl around his neck. “I’ve wasted so much time, I don’t want to waste any more.”</p><p>She pulls him down into her heat and Rick rocks into her with his love on his lips. “I love you, Lisa,” he tells her, this time without the scream of the bombs in their ears. “I’m always going to love you.”</p><p>She falls asleep in his arms and Rick refuses to let her go. She's different to the Lisa that manned the bridge of the SDF-1 - there's not so many walls, her hair is shorter, her body is softer. But she's still his Lisa. </p><p>And he vows to cherish her for the rest of his life.</p><p> </p><p>＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚　　˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊</p><p> </p>
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